Bear jams are ever more frequent in Yellowstone National Park, but not for the reasons you might expect. To understand what’s going on today, you have to look back in history.
Forty years ago, bear jams (traffic jams caused by drivers stopping to view bears) were caused by the then-legal practice of people feeding bears. People wanted to see bears and bears wanted free food, so bear jams on Yellowstone roads were a regular occurence.
In 1975, Yellowstone abruptly closed all of its dumps, which bears had habitually frequented to get free food. Feeding bears was forbidden everywhere, at any time, and the bears disappeared into the backcountry.
Fast forward to the early years of the 21st century, and bear jams are back, but not because visitors are shoving marshmallows and cookies out the slightly open windows of Suburbans and Subarus.
What’s going on, is that “as the bear population has grown, they’re making use of more territory,” said Kerry Gunther, bear management specialist for Yellowstone National Park.
For years, there was plenty of room for an expanding population of grizzly bears, Gunther said. Areas that used to be avoided, like busy roads, were all that was left. Roads along streams (riparian environments) were good because they provided available habitat for bears, notwithstanding the three million visitors per year that drive up and down those roads.
That started changing in the late 1990s, said Gunther.
“Bears are habituating to the presence of people,” said Gunther, or at least to the presence of cars on Yellowstone’s roads. The bears are no longer drawn by food from people, but by the food sources right along the road – lush patches of clover or elk calves hidden in the sagebrush or along streams.
Conceptually, black and grizzly bears figured that unoccupied habitat along the roads was a fair trade for their natural reluctance to avoid people, explained Gunther.
Management issues
The reappearance of bears triggered bear jams and some real management concerns. Gunther and other park officials were worried that people would start feeding the bears again, or get too close in order to take photographs or videos.
“The biggest problem turned out to be vehicular accidents,” said Gunther. People don’t think about driving, parking or shifting into park when they’re focused on bears. Rangers often deal with fender-benders and cars that slip out of gear and start rolling – into other cars and even people.
The park started off trying to manage the bears.
First, they trapped bears that were hanging around roads, and moved them into the backcountry. That didn’t work, said Gunther.
Next, biologists used adverse conditioning to shoo the bears away from the roads. That didn’t work, either.
“The public really likes to see bears,” said Gunther, so now the emphasis is on managing people. That’s why visitors are constantly bombarded with messages about respecting wildlife, staying prudent distances away from wildlife, and never, ever feeding wildlife.
Gunther said that just as bears habituate to people, the reverse is also the case – people habituate to bears. Park regulations say people must be 100 yards away from bears, but in the midst of a bear jam, people will hop right out of their vehicles and approach closer than 100 yards to get photos of the bears.
Interpretive rangers show up at bear jams to keep an eye on things, repeat those reminders for the unwary, and to deliver impromptu talks about animal behavior and natural history.
Bear jams, after all, are eminently “teachable moments.”
“We’re victims of our own success,” said Gunther. “Bear jams are like the stock market – they go up and down in numbers, but overall, the trend is upwards.”
During 2002, Yellowstone National Park had 692 bear jams – black and grizzly bears alike. In 2005, the park had 900 bear jams.
